Possibility of national intervention amid soaring debt

NHS Ayrshire & Arran faces the increasing possibility of national intervention as their projected budget gap leaps to £40m.

- KEVIN DYSON

When the health board set its budget earlier this year, they were already planning for a deficit that was around £33m - £8m more than that deemed acceptable by the Scottish Government.

But at a meeting of the health board last week, it was revealed that the projected shortfall was now sitting at just over £40m - an increase of around £7m on the agreed deficit.

Finance Director Derek Lindsay told the board that the overspend was at £20.5m after just seven months of 2025/26. It means that, to meet the Scottish Government target, overspending would have to be reduced to £1m a month for the rest of the year.

The news comes after it was revealed that NHS A&A had accumulated the highest loan debt of Scotland's eight health boards since 2019, (not including the two years around the pandemic when the loans were suspended).

Last month Audit Scotland warned that that situation was becoming untenable.

The £51.4m loan required by NHS A&A to balance the budget in 2024/25 wasn't the biggest in Scotland, with Grampian requiring a £65m loan.

However, over the course of the last four years, Ayrshire and Arran's cumulative loans have reached £130m - around a quarter of the total accrued debts of Scotland's health boards.

"Stage 4" intervention action was taken to address NHS Grampian's financial woes in May this year, with NHS Scotland taking over with a 'support and intervention framework' due to concerns about financial sustainability, leadership and governance, and service performance.

Mr Lindsay's report warns that NHS A&A could face a similar intervention should they fail to address the crisis.